Each In Its Own Fields
by dietplainlite
Summary: He eats regularly. He keeps his mind sharp with chemistry and biology and topography and the bees. Every once in a while the local constable will drop by with a case that's puzzling her. Sherlock scoffs but always helps. There's never been anything above a five.


There is a cottage in Sussex. Granted, there are many cottages in Sussex, but one in particular garners our attention today. It sits at the end of a quiet lane lined with ancient plum trees that form a bower of pink petals in the spring and give way to riotous green and delicate purple fruit in the summer. It is a Tudor peasant's cottage—two rooms up and two rooms down—covered in vines and surrounded by a flower garden, wild at first glance but carefully tended and curated. The herbs and flowers are medicinal and attractive to bees.

A Victorian era greenhouse runs along the entire back wall of the cottage, one end full of gardening paraphernalia and the other full of laboratory equipment.

Most days, the cottage is quiet, save for the plaintive sound of a violin in the evenings or the odd explosion followed by a string of curses.

At the moment there is only the sound of water misted on delicate leaves, the occasional clink of a pipette on the edge of a beaker, underscored by the lazy buzz of the beehives nestled in the tree line.

Molly Hooper-Holmes turns her attention from her largest fern to her husband, who has thrown his safety goggles onto the table with disgust.

"No luck?"

"None," he sighs. "I'm going for a walk."

"I'll walk you to the gate" Molly says, picking up a bushel basket from the floor. "We should finally have enough ripe plums for jam."

"Don't make any until I test the fructose levels," Sherlock says.

Molly frowns. "It's much more fun to just taste them."

"Says you," Sherlock replies, winking at her.

They walk in silence, Molly enjoying the squish of their wellies on the soggy lawn and the crunch of their steps on the gravel. They part at the gate, Sherlock kissing her on the temple and Molly running her hand through his salt and pepper hair. He gives her ponytail a quick tug before cutting through the meadow to go into town. One of the cats, a marmalade tabby named Snickers, hops down from his perch on the gate and follows Sherlock. Snickers will follow him all the way into the village and wait patiently outside of whatever shops Sherlock goes into. The local newspaper did a story on the cat's devotion to his human, much to Sherlock's displeasure.

"I used to make the papers for solving jewel heists, and now I'm featured because of a codependent cat," he'd grumbled.

"Welcome to retirement," Molly had said. "Now try this latest batch of honey and send that email to John with the story attached like you know you want to."

The honey had been excellent that year, as had the plum harvest.

Molly tastes one of the ripe plums, finding a perfect ratio of tartness to sweetness, and works her way up one side of the lane to the road, taking what she can reach easily from the trees as well as the wind fall that hasn't begun to rot. Her knees are not what they used to be, but she can't bear to think of too much of the fruit going to waste. The bees and other animals and insects would eat it (their first summer Sherlock had kept quite busy observing and cataloging the different species that partook of the fallen plums, even setting up cameras to catch the nocturnal visitors) but it's never all consumed.

Even after decades of a full stomach and good food, she can't shake the feeling of going to bed hungry, or her mother's admonition that wasting food is a sin.

"Circle of life, I suppose," she mutters. The uneaten fruit will end up feeding the soil. It won't be waste, any more than the food that Sherlock has used in his experiments. Despite growing up well off, Sherlock has gone hungry at times. During the period after he faked his death, of course, but also when he was in the throes of addiction.

The first time he'd ended up in the hospital had been due to malnourishment and dehydration. She hadn't known him then, but Mycroft had told her, the second time Sherlock wound up in the hospital, that time due to an overdose.

"He would only eat donuts—when he would eat at all—and forgot to drink." Then, sitting up straight, he deduced what Sherlock wouldn't until Christmas Eve five years in the future. "You wear your heart on your sleeve, Miss Hooper. I'm afraid it's no good. My brother can't—he won't ever be able to return your affections. I can get you transferred to any hospital of your choosing if you prefer the adage 'out of sight, out of mind' to 'absence makes the heart grow fonder.' Don't give me an answer now. Think on it. He won't be out of rehab for three weeks."

Molly didn't have to make a decision. Sherlock had raged so thoroughly at the mention of Molly's leaving that Mycroft had given in. At the time, she thought it was because she was the easiest to coerce and only got stern with him when he left messes in the lab. Eight years later she would learn that he'd already been in love with her. Had been from almost their first meeting.

At the end of the lane she stops and sets the basket down. She twists slowly at the waist, back and forth, then contemplates the row of trees on the other side. Her basket is only half full, and anything that's on the ground will likely be lost to damp and slugs if she leaves them overnight. She sighs and picks it up. How quickly this would have gone twenty years ago. But how likely would she have been to realize her good fortune, twenty years ago?

Quite likely, actually. She's always been very good at counting her blessings. Hoarding them, some would say.

Her phone beeps and she digs it out of her pocket. It's a photo of Snickers, outside the tobacco shop, staring down a curious Westie. She replies with a smiley face and asks him to please not get the Arcadia again unless he wants to always smoke his pipe outside; it had given her a dreadful headache.

The pipe is a habit she allows without too much scolding, mostly because he provided her with a detailed report about how much less nicotine and carcinogens he would inhale from the pipe rather than cigarettes. He isn't allowed to use the transdermal patches anymore and the prescription medication had given him waking dreams. So he smokes one pipe a day, sometimes two if he has a particularly puzzling experiment on. It still worries her, but honestly, she walks around most days with worry clanging dully in the background. It's like the rattling radiator she had in her first flat. Most days it faded into the background, but sometimes the sound wound its way into every thought until she had to escape to a coffee shop to study.

They first came to Sussex five years ago, only for the summer. Sherlock needed a quiet place to recover from heart surgery. They needed him out of London, away from excitement and cases and anything that could hinder his getting better.

Then he hadn't gotten better, not completely.

The literal and figurative running around London was out of the question. Keeping the practice open was out of the question, even if he promised to take only the quiet (boring) cases. He couldn't stop himself when a nine or a ten came in. Sherlock said he didn't want to live in a London where he couldn't work, so they stayed in the country.

The great consulting detective retired at age fifty.

He always says it's temporary, despite the biannual checkups proving otherwise. There has been no further deterioration in his health, and the prognosis is good, as long as he takes care of himself. Sherlock Holmes has never been good at that, but he's fortunate to have amassed quite a collection of people who love him enough to bully him into it. He takes his pills, and his walks. He eats regularly. He keeps his mind sharp with chemistry and biology and topography and the bees. Every once in a while the local constable will drop by with a case that's puzzling her. Sherlock scoffs but always helps. There's never been anything above a five.

Molly's phone beeps again.

_Hope you're not elbows deep in jam yet. We're having a guest for dinner. This one's a nine._


End file.
